Wiling Time Away
a hololive fanfiction by The Overlord Bear
Summary: Phantom thief Uyu Utsugi has this little whim about having the power to control time, but meeting the Time Warden in more of her divine glory turns him into a phantom tease.
“O Perfection From and Over the Flow of Beginning to End, this lowly servant calls upon You for a brazen desire.”
Uyu Utsugi was one of those phantom thieves who refused to make a spectacle out of robbing deities. Most of his fellows thought him a foolish religious because of that, but not only was the man of ceramic white neither here nor there about faith and the spiritual, he was someone who strongly believed that he took the “phantom” part of “phantom thief” very seriously. By that, he meant that he did his announced thievery for exhilarating fun and not for desperate commissions, and that he was open to stealing hearts but not to stuff like government takeovers. He would run a cafe in the day, he would steal whatever caught his fancy in the night, and if folks like aliens started running the place, he would just blend into the scenery and keep on having his very own fun.
Still, his mortal self could not do everything in one moment, and sometimes, Uyu wished he could pause time to consider his options a bit more. Of course, as a thief, he wasn’t going to go out of his way and learn time magic. Instead, because he enjoyed laughing at how whimsically dramatic he could get, he was going to try making the Time Warden give him a bit of her power. And maybe make her fall for him, but that was just a dumb bonus his sore boredom urged him to reach for. Again, he would rather be a phantom on top of being a thief.
“You sure took your time, phantom. Made me feel like I was more the phantom, even.”
So Uyu was surprised that she answered that quickly. And then there was how her deep, rich, and familiar voice made it difficult for him to assume that she was being anything else but amorous. All that was already exceeding his low expectations about this reckless rocketing of his, and yet, there was something even more wonderfully surprising…
“You seem to have quite the manners, revealing yourself to me when I called upon you,” he guessed to her form he could not find with his twists and turns over his shoulder. “Shouldn’t beings like you take what they want like how I steal what I want?”
There was a considerable silence at that.
The air seemed to grow hot there.
Uyu couldn’t help smirking as a result.
“Would you believe me if I said that I’m… a bit shy?” the phantom thief then heard the Time Warden ask.
“Considering how you haven’t even uttered a threat to punish me for my insolence towards you and your inherently sultry voice…” he replied, leaving a pause to let that sink in and make her squirm some more, “Well, I’m sure you know my answer to that already.”
Uyu knew that he might as well be expressing yet another death wish to her with that, but even boredom could be like that sometimes. You could be so bored, you’d rather die if you didn’t find anything more entertaining quickly. Perhaps he could steal a ticket to the Wardens through the Underworld? Cheating Death was another common rogue feat, after all.
And speaking of cheating death, how can one die without living at all? Before he would take the chance of going to and through the Underworld, Uyu was going to enjoy what little freedom he had and live as much as he could. And within all that light his white blended into was a question:
How far does she want this to go?
“Well, would you believe me if I said that you’re not the only handsome man I’m keeping tabs on?” she then asked him. “And that one of them is this jackal of a mafia boss whose things you love moving around every other day?”
Oh, so she liked fancy criminal men like him and Shien? Seems like Time Herself was also Money Herself on top of making sure that classy crime does pay. Uyu liked that very much.
So this blessed phantom thief gave a cheeky shrug to remind her about the tangles his kind were, and as expected, he got a funny little tangled breath in return. The smirk he had grew even wider as he considered what specific things she did while watching him, especially since a mere shrug of his got her all flustered.
“W-Well, since you answered my dumb question… Uhh… Nice makeup you got there?”
“Thank you,” he immediately answered, flicking his fringe. “I assume you’ve been to my cafe, then?”
Another tangled breath. An even wider smirk.
“Come to think of it, there was this customer who sounds as divine as you. Of course, on my measly honor as a phantom thief, I don’t ask for my customers’ names like all those other cafes do today.”
Total silence again.
Uyu also noticed how his newly repowered clock had just stopped its second hand’s pecking motions.
“Imposing figure,” he continued, still, drawing hisses one by one. “White shoulderless turtleneck. Deep blue jeans. Brown trench coat. Fancy checkered bag with a cute little snake. White step-ins.”
He held back a chuckle at how she sounded like a bomb with a lit fuse.
“And her face was quite a spectacle thanks to her nice blue curtains and semi-rim spectacles.”
“Oh, Inaff of that, you one-eyed snowman.”
Then there was that woman looking exactly like he described, setting on his bed like a tsundere schoolgirl about to have her first time with her first boyfriend.
“My, you might make this snowman melt for the first time with that heated proposition,” he let out his chuckles now. “Though I think your and your fellow Wardens’ worshippers would get to me first.”
A clock-hand-like blade was under his neck now, though that little snake on her bag giggled and made her blush more.
“I assume you have a more divine outfit, though?” the phantom thief then asked, remembering more of the material he read about the Wardens.
“I’m not giving you a striptease, you weirdo,” the Time Warden answered with yet another bladed clock hand. A clock-like halo also appeared above her crown.
Uyu laughed even louder at that and bowed as much as his already instinctively raised arms allowed. “Alright, you do you, milady.”
“Yeah, I do me everyday, buddy,” she followed up, though he noticed her gulp before continuing. “‘Cause I… love myself the most.”
“Yeah, it checks out,” he nodded and smiled. “Nothing but perfection for you, right? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure I am.”
“And I hate myself the most,” she dropped from thinly masked nervousness to twitchingly clear scowl.
“So you went for a dangerously attractive person, which is also what I am,” Uyu fired back, trying to hold back his laughter again. “A win either way, right? So if you wanna be pushed down…”
The world blinked again, and then the Time Warden on his bed was replaced with torn sheets, blankets, and pillows.
“Welp, I did that to myself,” Uyu hissed at the damage to his pretty property.
And then the phantom thief realized a possibility.
He moved his hands across his body.
No strange wetness there.
And then he saw his face in the mirror.
On his cheek was a blue kiss mark, but that was just a tiny thing compared to the childish lipstick writing across the rest of his face:
property of kronii ouro
“Nice, she gave me her name,” Uyu Utsugi grinned at the sight. Not that he didn’t know her name already, but confirming it for himself was another wonderful experience.
So with that and the sweat threatening to drip down his brow, the monochrome phantom thief who stole the blue Time Warden’s heart promptly took his smartphone out for the sake of memories and blackmail.
Not that he would call her again like he did during this night, though. Not when he knew that she would come back after playing around with him like that.
“I look forward to our next game, then, goddess,” the phantom thief said as he went to his bathroom to wash his face.
And back Uyu went to his regular schedule and all its ups and downs and his adjustments about them.
After all, he was one of many prisoners of Time, and he refused to waste a beauty like her.
Author’s Note: The Uyu-centered Jumproar episode and Kronii’s MAFIA cover plus her friendship with Stars EN formed another inspiration for writing this piece, and that added inspiration is the idea of the Time Warden being an otome game protagonist, something I never imagined any of the Stars’ Live friends so far being until now. Though I’d like to advise having rocks of salt to pelt at me, because on top of writing a shipping fanfic of this kind, I am not that versed in otome games.
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